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tv   CNN Newsroom  CNN  September 22, 2010 11:00am-1:00pm EDT

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reflux. jeanne moos, cnn, new york. >> there have to be several states in the union where that's against the law. >> makes for great television. >> have a great day. >> wonder how the shoes taste? >> fillet of sole. live from studio 7, the big stories for wednesday, september 22nd, a preacher who crusades against homosexuality accused of bullying young men into sex. a spokesperson for bishop eddie long calls the lawsuit a shakedown. bureaucrats who ran the small town of bell, california, arraigned this hour. the prosecutor says they used the town as their personal piggy bank. >> new provisions of the health care law are kibing in. good morning, i'm tony harris. those stories and your comments right here, right now in the cnn newsroom.
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a mega church pastor facing a monumental legal battle. bishop eddie long, leader of a 25,000 member congregation here in atlanta denies allegations that he used his position to coerce two young men into sexual relationships when they were teenagers. >> angels were flying around my bed all night all day! >> reporter: bishop eddie long's fiery sermons have made her a revered evangelical pastor. >> eddie long offers himself up as this kind of man's man, the quintessential man. he's a successful businessman. he's a successful preacher. he has a beautiful family. he drives a fancy car. he wears customed tailored cloenls, and in some ways some would argue he's the man all women want and all men are
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suppose to the aspire to be. >> reporter: two young men, former church members, say bishop eddie long used his spirit chal authority to man in late them into sexual relationships. robinson and flagg said they met eddie long through a ministry aimed at nurturing boys into strong young men. >> he would use biblical stories to talk about how important it was to follow your leader and your master, and let him know that the acts that he was engaged in were not necessarily meaning that he was a homosexual. >> reporter: bishop long's spokesman says he adamantly deny the allegations that he made them his spiritual sons in a private saerm moan. >> within that could have been nent it was a marriage ceremony where there were candles, exchange of jewelry and biblical quotes given in order for
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anthony to know and for the bishop to tell him i will always have your back and you will always have mine. >> reporter: bishop eddie long built a spiritual empire by sheer force of personality. new birth church had 400 members 20 years ago. today it has more than 25,000 members. when coretta scott king died, her funeral was held in his church. as his prestige was grown so has his conservative voice in social politics. >> we are not marches against folk. we are marching for folk. and if they don't understand it now, they'll understand it better, as the old preacher says, by and by. >> reporter: bishop eddie long often refers to himself as god's scarred leader. those who followed his career say bishop long has never sighed away from talking about his own
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personal struggles and falls pap that's made him even bigger than life to this flock. >> ed lavendera joining me live now. let's talk about this in more detail. we are starting to get more react from the bishop's camp. >> strong react. his spokesperson art franklin called into cnn this morning and essentially accused these two young men of shaking down the bishop. listen to what they told us. >> this is actually, john, a case of retaliation and a shakedown for money by men with serious credibility issues who are trying to mount their own defense. this is something that went from 48 hours in contact with the attorney making outrageous demands to this dog and pony show that we are seeing that began yesterday. >> what he's talking about, the shakedown and credibility issues, kind of gets to the heart of what will matter to a lot of people as they follow the
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story. it's what he is alluding to here and what is brought up in the lawsuits themselves, back in the summer of june, there was a break-in in the new birth church. his office was broken into, and $100,000 in jewelry was stolen, and one of the people arrested in that case is maurice robinson, one of the men filing the lawsuits. the bishop is saying he wants money. his attorney is saying, look, this came about the same time that he was starting to find out about these relationships. he was upset about it, and it was his way of lashing out at the bishop to go after what he cared for most, which is the material possessions. >> there are other developments in this case that you're following as well, right? >> we're starting to hear that two more people could come forward. those cases have not been filed. we are not ready to get into the details of that, but we have been told on good authority that that could be happening sooner
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rather than later, today or tomorrow. >> so let's do this. stay here with me. we're going to have more on this story certainly next hour. we'll have a live interview with j.l. king, author of "on the down low." let's do this now. let's check some other big stories on the day. congressional repeal of the military's don't ask, don't tell policy will have to wait until after the november elections. democrats couldn't break a republican-led filibuster against a defense spending bill that including a repeal. republicans led by senator mccain should wait until the results of a pentagon survey are in. the defeat leaves democrats struggling with how to proceed. >> it is outrageous and sad that the republicans have banded together to refuse to even let
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us begin debate on pa bill so critically important on our nation's defense and so vital to the well being of the men and women in uniform and their families. >> i have been around here and never seen such a cynical use of the needs of the men and women in our military and our national security as played in a fashion that senator harry reid and senator leaven are doing so. this summer's massive egg recall in the spotlight on the hill. the house panel opens a hearing next hour. among those calls to testify, jack decoster. decoster will apologize today to the people who got sick. the outbreak is blamed for hundreds of illnesses. 2009 rewind. president obama spent a good deal of that year developing his afghan war strategy. now a new book details the tense
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battles inside the white house over war policy. ed henry joins us now. good to see you. any attention-grabbing headlines so far. >> reporter: it's interesting because what you see in the washington post and new york times, getting early copies of this book, supposed to be published next week, suggest that the president in these deliberations, when he was considering a buy draul of u.s. troops and selled on july to bring troops home, there was political pressure there, the book quoting the president saying i want an exit strategy. i can't lose the whole democratic party, suggesting he was reacting to pressure from liberals, and a quote attributed to richard holbrooke, a senior adviser on pakistan policy, saying the new policy on afghanistan can't work. there are details about in-fighting, et cetera. senior administration officials say we know there is division.
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that's healthy debate. this is serious policy going on, and they add that the president comes across in the review and the decision making process. this is about the afghan war-making process as an analytical, strategic decisive leader. this official added that the debates and division was well conicaled within the media when this all happened but i have to say, sure, that was out there, and not at the level of detail that bob woodward brings to the table and there are more specifics that were not known and we will see what the white house reaction is about the politics of all this but certainly coming at a time when the white house would prefer to talk about jobs and the economy so close to the election. we've heard a lot about that and now they have to deal with a new book that raises questions about whether there are people in this administration that have second thoughts maybe about the strategy. >> ed henry with us. good to see you. thank you, sir.
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bob woodward will be on "larry king live" next wednesday. the president is in falls church, virginia, this hour talking about the patients' bill of rights. we will take his comments live at 11:45 eastern time. six months after passage of the president's signature health care bill, changes are kicking in. what they mean to you. bonnie schneider is tracking the weather for us on this last day of summer. >> we are watching out for flooding due to a tropical depression in the southwest. phoenix getting hit hard with rain. hurricane season is not over by yeah means. we have a brand knew tropical thread in the caribbean that may affect the gulf later next week. i have the forecast as we welcome in fall. [ male announcer ] have something you love doing?
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the battle lasted more than a year, and now at long last, some big changes in health care
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going to come into effect. what will they be exactly, and how will they help you? two big questions. josh is here with the breakdown. >> good morning to you, tony. today marks six months since the president actually signed that legislation, and it is the day that some of these big changes come into effect. it is interesting to see the length of time between the battles that go on and when it actually impacts you. the first thing to tell you is most people get insurance through work and won't see changes in your health plan until it renews, and that's usually january 1st, but plans sold to individual groups starts tomorrow. let's take a look at a few of the changes. the first one is this. dependent coverage, coverage through age 26. employers have to cover dependents who don't have access to other employer-based coverage. children covered for pre-existing conditions. for adults that doesn't go into
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effect until 2014 but health insurers have to cover children with a pre-existing condition. insurers cannot rescind your condition. as you know and a lot of you have experienced this, your honor fortunately there are insurers who try to take back your coverage when you get sick or go back to your original application and find a random error as an excuse to drop you. no longer allowed to do that. no lifetime limits. they cannot put a limit on expenses like hospital stays. preventive care, this is interesting, because new plans are required to cover certain preventive services, like mammograms, colonoscopies without charging anything. any deductibles, and co-pays, you won't have to pay anything for some basic reventive care on top of what you are paying already. >> so will this apply, what you
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just outlined here, to all health care plans? >> no. that's a good thing to talk about. certain plans are grandfathered and avoid some of the changes. i will break that down in the next hour. i will tell you about other changes because we are picking off the top. there are a few other major changes that kick in tomorrow. >> appreciate it. thank you, josh. the president is in falls church, virginia, this hour talking about the patients' bill of rights. a big bank halts evics in almost half of the states. questions about ally banks a foreclosure practices. we are coming up on two hours into the trading day. we are in negative territory, down 30. we are following these numbers throughout the day for you right here in the cnn newsroom. wheat smooths damaged cuticles for 75% more shine in one use. real shine, for real life. yours.
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let's get you to your favorite financial website, cnnmoney.com. tax credit bonanza for small businesses. we need small businesses
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operating here, hiring people, with the ability to get the loans that they need to make payrolls and to expand. we just told you a moment ago that the dow is in negative territory, down 23 points and the nasdaq down 17. the financial industry is hot water over new charges today. ally bank like most big bank has signed off on thousands of foreclosures recently but ally didn't always check to see if the information in the documents is correct. alison kosic has the details. how does something like this happen? when you think about it, courts are involved in foreclosure process? >> you'd think. the fact of the matter is that not all states require foreclosures to go to court. the bank has to sign off on the affidavit if there's a presence of a notary there it speeds things along. here's what happened according to ally. they sent us a statement saying there are cases where the
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affidavit may have been executed without direct personal knowledge of all of the information stated in the affidavit and instead in reliance on the personal knowledge and information of other gmac mortgage personnel. what does that mean? it means that the employee went off of what others said and didn't check the documents for accuracy. also, ally says in some cases the notary just wasn't there, just wasn't present. here's what could be even more interesting here. this could be more widespread. there are some reports that there was a single j.p. morgan chase employee who did the same thing. >> so what it being done to fix this? >> ally has taken action. their internal process has been modified to stop this particular happening again, suspended evics in 23 states to give them time to review the cases that may have been affected, and ally is hoping to have most of these cases wrapped up within weeks but some of this will be caught
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up in court and require a court action and could be complicated more, if the home was already sold to someone else. can you imagine? >> that's exactly what i was thinking. that's a nightmare. that's an absolute nightmare scenario. >> you have to backtrack there. think about it, just last year alone, we hit a record amount of foreclosures, about 3 million foreclosures last year, not just ally, but it makes you wonder how many are affected. >> we have a real problem here. thank you. appreciate it. a small town outraged over six-figure salaries for bureaucrats. now eight people are in court to answer to corruption charges. rb? it's just outside of lancaster. sure, i can download directions for you now. we got it. thank you very much! check it out. i can like, see everything that's going on with the car. here's the gas level. i can check on the oil. i can unlock it from anywhere. i've received a signal there was a crash. some guy just cut me off. i'll get an ambulance to you right away.
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let's get you caught up with top stories. eight current and former city officials from bell, california, will be arraigned in just a couple of minutes. the group is charged with miss propose yating more than $5 million in city funds. city officials paid themselves big, huge, gigantic salaries. the city manager earned three-quarters of a million dollars a year. they are drilling in chile to try to reach the miners in 24 hours but engineers think it will take a month to cut through solid rock. the world's oldest man is celebrating his 114th birthday. he has seen three centuries and is the world's oldest man but three women have him beat as the world's oldest person.
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we are tracking tropical weather out in the southwest. a tropical depression named georgette will enhance rainfall in areas in arizona. you can see the track of the depression as it advances in. it will be a rainmaker for mexico but there are flash flood watches and warnings up in the phoenix area due to heavy rain. we are expecting more rain throughout the day, two inches plus and that will make for troubles because we have been seeing the rain coming in steadily throughout the morning. you see heavy rain working its way in this region. it's been so hot over the past few days in the region that the ground is really dry and won't
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absorb the water as much. we will see hot temperatures in phoenix. 92 degrees for the high. wrapping up the summer season, so not surprising that it's warm out there. let's talk about a brand new threat here in the tropics. in the caribbean, notice the area to the south of the leeward islands. you see convection here, and here is aruba. this will advance to the west. maybe you think it will affect central america. some of the models are predicting that this storm in the next week or so could turn to the north and if it does, that would pose a threat in the gulf of mexico. early to say what it's going to happen. it's an area of disturbed weather. it will develop into something. we are still in hurricane season and that means tropical trouble. we have to keep on top of it. >> what is it, the end of november, and in november before we wrap up the atlantic
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hurricane season? >> that's right. >> i got that right. i pay attention. thank you, bonnie. this year's eastern states expose significance, the big e. a lot of folks come to eat and we are talking extreme eat here, as in -- i wonder what they will deep fry this year? how about a ball of butter with a few jelly beans thrown in? >> i take my butter and whip it into balls and put it into fried dough and wrap it tight and when it's fried they break it open, and the butter just oozes out. >> i saw fried jelly beans. never heard of it before. said let's give it a try. they were amazing. >> fried balls of butter. that's good eating. when we come back, the mayor of bell, california, and others
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charged with ripping off the small town they ran. [ female announcer ] what if your natural beauty could be flawless, too? new aveeno positively radiant tinted moisturizers, with scientifically proven soy complex and natural minerals give you sheer coverage instantly, then go on, to even skin tone in four weeks. new aveeno tinted moisturizers. the smell of freshly juicedne wheat grassks. and hand pressed shirts. whatever scents fill your household, purina tidy cats scoop helps neutralize odors in multiple cat homes. purina tidy cats scoop. keep your home smelling like home.
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the prosecutor calls it corruption, and he's talking about corruption on steroids. the mayor, vice mayor and two council members among eight current and former officials from bell, california, in court right now. ted rowlands joining us from our los angeles bureau. what are we expecting to happen
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today? is this a simple arraignment, reading of charges and maybe a plea? >> reporter: well, for the most part, yes. we are expecting it to start in the next five minutes but one thing we're going to watch is bail and specifically bail for robert rizzo, the city manager who allegedly paid himself according to the state investigators $1.1 million a year using taxpayers' funds. prosecutors want bail set at $3.2 million and also want an investigation if he does come up with that bail money. they want to make sure that that money didn't come from the bell taxpayers. so it will be interesting to see if he actually makes bail or stays in jail for a while. >> what about the police chief that was making 450,000 a year? >> reporter: yeah, which raised a lot of eyebrows considering the starting salary for the guys on the beat is $30,000. he was not charged in all of this because, prosecutors say,
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he was getting a lot of money but that was not against the law. he didn't try to hide his salary and wasn't involved in the backroom deals, if you will. scot fri, allowed to get his pension. >> any competents from rizzo or his attorney? >> reporter: nothing from rizzo. from the beginning he hasn't said much at all. i talked to his attorney at length on the phone last night. he is saying that rizzo was transparent and what he did was not illegal and the fact that this is it a political season and jerry brown is running for governor, he's jumped on this case and the city district attorney in los angeles county, steve cooley is running for jerry brown's seat, he's jumped on this case. he says his client is being pushed into the lime light here and isn't getting a fair shake
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but i'll tell you, the people in bell were celebrating when they saw the image of them in cuffs. >> whose running the city with everyone being locked up? >> reporter: that's a good question. five of the six city council members are in jail. they keep their seats until convicted. in the interim, the l.a. county board of supervisors wants to bring a receivership situation in. it is pretty much a mess. no business is being done in bell. if these guys do get out today on bail, they technically are still in charge. >> all right, ted rowlands following the procedures in court. good to see you. making the case for african-americans to embrace liberia just as jewish americans embrace israel. billionaire investor robert johnson joining me live right here.
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a delta airlines is capitalized on a demand for greaters access to africa. it just added flights to liberian, the seventh african
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country with direct flights to the united. robert johnson is credited with making the business case for this latest destination. brenda bush reports johnson has deep-rooted interests in helping liberia. >> reporter: africa's first female president and america's first black billionaire robert johnson together celebrating a milestone, the first u.s. commercial flight in 20 years to touch down on liberian soil. >> our thanks go to mr. robert johnson who is here on this flight. he has been a steadfast friend to liberia in so many ways. >> reporter: after more than a decade of civil war and lingering security concerns, liberia is trying to make a comeback, and robert johnson is joining in the fight and it is personal. >> the historical connection between liberia and african-americans in particular
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is significant. the first ten presidents from liberia were freed american slaves. liberia's flag is red, white and blue. it has a president, a house and nate as we do. >> reporter: johnson is a trailblazer, the first black person to be named on forbes' annual list of the world's black people. he founded b.e.t. and is a real estate mogul and investor and now made the 2006 global initiative to make a difference, johnson entered a new frontier, helping the country founded by america's freed slaves. >> there is this unique cultural tie between african-americans and the brave slaves who settled liberia and america. >> reporter: strengthening those ties have caused him to plant roots. he built a resort in liberia with villa styled rooms
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decorated with a contemporary african flare and also established a $30 million investment initiative to provide loans to entrepreneurs. >> it has a beautiful coastline, as you can see behind us. it is 9 1/2 hours if you fly direct from atlanta as delta is doing, eventually to mon voevia. it has an english-speaking population that is very well educated. it has a huge airport. it has an opportunity, as i said, to be the entry point into west africa. >> reporter: but one thing liberia still needs according to johnson, is the support of african-americans. >> we as african-americans need to look to the future and determine how we can help liberia never return to the dark days of the past. >> reporter: liberians have long felt a strong kinship with the united states.
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so there is tremendous appreciation here for the wealthy american who is making the case for this impoverished nation. >> this is an opportunity for african-americans, and i've said this before, for african-americans to embrace liberia the way jewish americans embrace israel. >> reporter: robert johnson taking a lead in that embrace. brenda bush, cnn, monrovia. >> robert johnson is back from lib beer where and joins me live from new york. bob. it's good to see you. thanks for your time today. >> tony, delighted to be here with you. >> let's get started with this, bob. take a look at this quote from former treasury secretary bob rupen, and here it is. it seems to me that we in the united states should be more focused on africa, not only as the source of natural resources but also for the full range of opportunities that exist. there is no reason why our
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presence shouldn't be as great if not greater than china's. now, given your investment in liberia, you obviously agree with the former treasury secretary. as you were thinking about africa, what did you see as the possibilities for the continent? >> well, tony, when you look at subis a haren africa, there are over 600 million people there, and it's a tremendous opportunity for the growth of a sib brandt middle class. the african nations are rich in minerals and natural resources. they have a tremendous coastline for exploration of oil as they are doing outside of liberia, and the governments are becoming more stabilized, more focused on free-market economies, contractual rights, and all of thissingers well for subsaharan africa becoming the next
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emerging area in the world as thee countries become more stable and politically sophisticated, and the economic need for the rest of the world to engage in subsaharan africa. >> i heard your case for liberia in brenda's piece. that's not enough for me. i want to push more on that. why liberia? aren't you taking a big risk investing in that war-torn country? >> well, you know, obviously, tony, with risk in any area, emerging nations, or war-torn countries, there's a huge risk, but i think in the case of liberia, i think it's a risk worth taking. first of all, they have a dynamic leader in president ellen johnson surly. her commitment to liberia, the experience she's gone through in becoming president and convincing me and convincing a lot of business people that liberia is open for business,
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that the government is folk cushioned on contractual rights, is focused on prohibiting any form of bribery or corruption, and as i said, liberia has ridge mineral rue sours, fishing opportunity and tourist opportunity. i can't imagine in any scenario that the liberian people will return to any form of the civil war that crippled liberia for 15 to 20 years. >> you attend the bic congressional black caucus weekend and when you talk to leaders about subsaharan africa and specifically liberia, what reaction do you get? >> most of the members have been committed to africa for a long time and they took the lead in ending apartheid in south africa and they have seen what happened in ghana with political stability and they look at liberia because of the number of
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liberians who live in the united states. there's a huge population living here, some 15,000 in atlanta alone, and the opportunity to support liberia with sending money back and going back home and take their u.s. training and knowledge and applying it to the liberian economy as well as the historical relationship of the united states with liberia. liberia was one of the, as i said, first countries in africa that embraced the united states during world war ii. the roberts field, where we landed our planes was a place where planes flew into to continue onto north africa to defeat nazi germany. so there's a connection between the united states and liberia and between the people of the united states and liberia, and i think the caucus members want to see that promoted and encouraged. >> i can't let you go without asking you a political question, and i got to tell you, you were
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a hillary clinton supporter during the campaign and that campaign is over. i'm sure you followed the first 18 months-plus of the obama administration. we are showing the president's job approval numbers in the 40s. here's the question. as you consider the president, the first african-american president of the united states, do you approve of the job he's doing? >> well, i think you got to put it all in context, tony. obviously president obama should get credit for stabilizing the financial markets and the banks and the confidence he had in making that transition from what was happening before he was elected. i think he has his work cut ought for him in two areas. one is, obviously, business confidence and consumer confidence. and you don't get consumer confidence up unless you have a coherent message of how you're going to put people back to work, and at the same time, you don't get business confidence
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unless business can get some certainty as to what are your policies towards economic growth, investment and tax policy. so while i think he has got, you know, a tough fight ahead of him, some of it obviously he didn't create, but the fact is it's on his watch now, and it's his responsibility to give a clear message to the american people in the bood sense, not just main street, in the broad sense, but wall street and small businesses and minority businesses, that i've got a plan to get this country back on the right track in the short order and give people the confidence that his leadership is going to provide the confidence that this country is sorely lacking. >> i think you just made the cnn political ticker. robert good to see you. mr. johnson, thanks for your time today. >> i'll see you in liberia some day. >> thank you. let's take a break.
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i believe we have some live pictures from falls church, virginia, right now. the president will soon be talking about the patients' bill of rights from someone's backyard. we will take the president's comments live when they happen. time now for your cnn equals politics update. mark preston with the best
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political team on television joining us live from d.c. what's crossing right now? >> reporter: well, tony, of course, shortly we'll have the news that you just broke with mr. johnson on the cnn political atlanticer. if you didn't get a chance to see the interview, check out the ticker. let's talk about president obama. you said he's in someone's backyard. this morning he was in the e-mail boxes of about 13 million people. in fact, he put out a call to arms to supporters. let's check out the story that we have on here on the plot political ticker. what he did is that he asked these supporters to not only come out and vote in november but he needs them to donate to democr ramping it up as we're heading into the midterm elections. it's not just him, tony. you might not remember this because of, you know, your age. you're pretty young. 26 years ago, check out this, the reagan era is back in some
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way, shape or form. 26 years ago, 1984, ronald reagan talked about morning in america, the theme that talked about economic prosperity and helped him cruise some loyal ai associates are out with a play on words. they're calling it mourning in america if you can hear my boston accent to talk about how bad the economy has been under president obama. there's an ad up running on cable about $400,000 and run by loyal reagan aides. let's close it out like this, it hasn't been a good year for the nevada governor jim gibbons. he lost the ability to run for reelection. he has fallen off a horse and he's been hospitalized in nevada. we think he's okay. but, you know -- hasn't been a very good year, tony, for jim gibbons. >> that's a bad turn. mark, appreciate it. and i'll be looking for that bob johnson interview up on the ticker here soon. mark preston for us. your next political update in an hour.
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and for the next update you know where to go, cnnpolitics.com.
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the bedbug infestation is now bicoastal. are those bugs behind me? thanks.
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reports of bedbugs is surging now in california. in both the san francisco and san diego areas. the epicenter of the infestation appears to be new york. the blood-sucking creatures have checked into hotels and shut a big clothing retailer down. they spread easily by hitching a ride in suitcases. seasoned travelers, look for the signs. >> when i go to a hotel room, what i do is actually pull the covers up, and i look around and you know the little rim on the mattress, i check all around there because that's where they like to hide. >> bedbug experts are holding a summit near chicago. nice. we have been asking you to tell us your bedbug horror stories. robert w. says this summer my wife and i discovered bedbugs in our apartment with our 8-month-old son. we went to a hotel unable to move back. everything we owned had to be washed and sealed. fortunately we recovered some damages. george d. in chicago writes i noticed a series of small bites
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around my sock line on my legs. oh, man, turns out my apartment was fully infested. i had an exterminator come in, but he suggested i dispose of all of my furniture. oh, man. okay. still to come. the pastor of a mega church faces blistering allegations of sexual misconduct. next hour in the "cnn newsroom," we examine black churches and homosexuality. j.l. king the author of "on the down low." plus cnn's dr. sanjay gupta introduces us to some patients with medical mysteries doctors are trying to unravel. we'll be back in a moment. ♪ [car horn honks] our outback always gets us there... ... sometimes it just takes us a little longer to get back. ♪
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>> thank you so much. all right. >> welcome. my name is paul, and my wife francis here, we'd like to welcome you to our backyard. we appreciate y'all being here. we tried to clean up everything. but watch your step. you never know, there could be a fresh one out there. >> they have dogs. >> so welcome. 36 years ago i was born with severe factor nine deficiency, hemophilia. i lack a clotting factor in my blood to make it clot. and it's been a bit of a challenge over the years. in 2006, i reached a lifetime cap after three years, i was trying to figure out what to do. whether i should go on a disability policy, change jobs, or move states. fortunately my employer came through and was able to cover my health care costs. but it was a significant stress
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for me and my wife. we had an opportunity to have this employer take care of us, which made the world of difference. the problem with hemophilia is 90% of the costs are associated with the clotting factor, the medications i take. so it's been -- that's really where i drive up health care. and it's important to have a policy that will cover that. you know, when there's capitation on plans and other things, it doesn't necessarily make my health better, it makes me worse and more expensive. so it's been something that i've had to work through. fortunately, the affordable health care act is going to remove some of those burdens and remove the shackles. really, i won't have to depend on the job for insurance anymore. the affordable health care act is welcome. and i expect it'll make a big difference in my life and others
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affected. thank you again for being here and i'd like to introduce president barack obama. thank you for being here, sir. >> thank you, everybody. thank you. well, it is great to see you. thanks all for taking the time to be here. i know it's a little warm under the sun. so if anybody at some point wants to shift their chairs into the shade, i'm fine with that. i won't be insulted. i want to just make a couple of acknowledgments of people who are here. first of all, i've got the secretary of health and human services. so she's charged with implementing the affordable care act, kathleen sebelius. she's doing a great job. knows all about this stuff. we're very proud to have her on the team. somebody who helped to champion the kinds of reforms and patients' rights we're going to talk about here today. congressman jim moran is here. thank you so much, jim.
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and falls church mayor. i was just mentioning barouk means blessings in hebrew, and barack means the same thing. so that means a lot. when i came into office, obviously we were confronted with an historic crisis. the worst financial crisis since the great depression. we had lost 4 million jobs in the six months before i was sworn in. and we lost almost 800,000 the month i was sworn in. obviously the economy has been uppermost on our minds. and i had to take a series of steps very quickly to make sure we prevented the country from growing into a second great depression. that the financial markets were stabilized. we've succeeded in doing that, and now the economy's growing
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again. but it's not growing as fast as it needs to. and you still have millions of people who are unemployed out there. you still have hundreds of thousands of people who have lost their homes. there's a lot of anxiety, and there's a lot of stress out there. and so, so much of our focus day-to-day is trying to figure out how do we just make sure that this recovery that we're slowly on starts accelerating in a way that helps folks all across the country? but when i ran for office, i ran not just in anticipation of a crisis, i ran because middle class families all across the country were seeing their security eroded. partly because between the years 2001 and 2009, wages actually went down for the average family by 5%. we had the slowest job growth of any time since world war ii.
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the "wall street journal" called it the lost decade. and part of the challenge for families was that even as their wages and incomes were flat lining, their costs from everything from tuition to health care was skyrocketing. so what we realized was we had to take some steps to deal with these underlying chronic problems that have confronted our economy for a very long time. and health care was one of those issues that we could no longer ignore. we couldn't ignore it because the cost of health care has been escalating faster than just about anything else. and i don't need to tell you all that. even if you have health insurance, you've seen your copaymec co-payments and premiums skyrocket, even if you get health care from your employer. that employers' costs have skyrocketed and they're starting to pass more and more of those costs on to their employees.
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more people don't get health care from their employers. and in addition, what you're seeing was that at the state level and at the federal level, the costs of health care because people weren't getting it on the job and were trying to get it through the chip program or medicaid or disability or what have you, all those costs were driving our government bankrupt. anybody who is out there who is concerned about the deficit, the single biggest driver of our deficit is the ever escalating cost of health care. so it was bankrupting families, companies, and our government. so we said we had to take this on. and most of all as i traveled around the country, i'd hear stories from families in every single state. you know, they had a child who had a pre-existing condition and they couldn't get health insurance.
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or they thought they had insurance only to find out that in the fine print there was some sort of lifetime limit of the sort that paul described. they bump up next against it and suddenly they're out of luck. and potentially going to lose their home or lose whatever savings they had because the insurance that they thought they were getting wasn't going to fully cover them. some people will tell -- would tell me stories about how just as they got sick, the insurance company would've gone through their form and saw some innocuous mistake and just dropped their coverage. because they hadn't listed -- in some extreme cases, we had folks who, you know, had a gallbladder problem 15 years ago that had nothing to do with the sickness that they were now experiencing, but the insurance company said, oh, you forgot to list that. we're going to drop you from
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your insurance. i met young people all across the country who starting off in life getting their first job weren't getting health insurance and couldn't stay on their parents' policies. so the amount of vulnerability that was out there was horrendous. and what i said to myself and what i said to my team was even as we were dealing with this big crisis, immediate crisis with respect to the economy, we've got to start doing something to make sure that ordinary folks who are feeling insecure because of health care costs, that they get some relief. so the reason we're here today is that thanks to outstanding work by people like jim, thanks to outstanding implementation by folks like kathleen, we are now actually able to provide some help to the american people. essentially part of the -- part
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of the affordable care act that we can implement right now and will take effect -- is it today or tomorrow? tomorrow. see. francis knows. then we can -- that will take effect tomorrow is the most important patients bill of rights that we've ever seen in our history. let me just tick off some of the things that are going to be the case starting tomorrow. number one, paul already mentioned, the issue of lifetime limits. that is not going to be the rule anymore after tomorrow. if you've got a policy, you get sick, the insurance company covers you. number two, pre-existing conditions for children. children who have pre-existing conditions are going to be covered. number three. we're going to make sure that if
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young people don't have health insurance through their employer that they can stay on their parents' health insurance up to the age of 26. which is obviously a huge relief for a lot of parents who are seeing their young people just coming out of college and not being able to get insurance. you're going to be able to make sure that the insurance company doesn't drop you because of an innocent mistake on your insurance form. this rule of rescission, they are not going to be able to drop you arbitrarily, which gives you more security. number four, you're going to be able to choose your doctor and not have to go through some network in an emergency situation as a consequence to these rules. so it gives customers more choice and more options. there's so many good things about this, i may have forgotten one. kathleen, anything else?
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right. and preventive care. i knew there was one more. preventive care will now be offered under your policy, which over the long-term can actually save people money. because you get diagnosed quicker. so all these things are designed not to have government more involved in health care, they're designed to make sure that you have basic protections in your interactions with your insurance company. that you're getting what you paid for. that you have some basic measures of protection in interacting with the health care system, which means that you're not going to go bankrupt. you're not going to lose your house. if heaven forbid you end up having an accident. and you're able to get the quality care that you need. now, obviously there are a whole host of other things involved in the health care reforms that we initiated. small businesses, 4 million of them are going to get a huge tax break if they start providing
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health insurance to their employees. we've got measures that make sure that medicare, the life of medicare is extended. and in fact, we just got a report today that the medicare advantage program that we have modified and scrutinized more carefully. that, in fact, rates are going to be lower for that than they were before. i just met with state insurance commissioners from all across the country. they are newly empowered to look after consumers. and i'll just give you one example. in north carolina, in part because of the new leverage that insurance commissioners have, the insurance commissioner there was able to get $125 million rebate for 200,000 customers in north carolina. and they are seeing the lowest rate increases ever. all this is going to lower premiums, it's going to make health care more affordable, it's going to give you more security. that's the concept behind what we're implementing. but rather than me do all the
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talking, i want to make sure that some people who have struggled in the past with the health care system have an opportunity to tell their story because basically the reason we did this was because of the stories i had heard from folks like you all across the country. and i want to make sure that a couple of you have a chance to tell your stories before i take some questions. so we're going to start with dawn. where's dawn? dawn's right here. dawn's already got her own mike. introduce yourself, and tell us a little bit about yourself and your situation. >> thank you. i'm dawn josephson from jacksonville, florida. and i've been a self-employed entrepreneur since 1998. during that time, majority of those years i didn't even have insurance because it was simply too expensive. in 2006, my son wesly was born -- this is wesly -- >> come on over here. give me a high five. >> go say hi. there you go.
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>> this is wesly here. >> he was born in 2006. and that's when we got -- we finally got health insurance. we had a few different policies over the years. always had something excluded from it, even something as silly as ear infections. what kid does not get ear infections? in july of '09, he had eye surgery. we discovered he had sudden onset of a condition called strabismis and his right eye needed surgery. so we had the surgery. and in less than a year later, we said we needed new insurance. what we had was killing us for our premium. and this was right around the time -- right after the act passed. the insurance company gave us an affordable rate. we were looking for a very affordable plan. and when she told us we were approved, my immediate response was -- but what's not covered? and i knew full well we were going to have an exclusion for my son's eye. and she said, you're covered.
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nothing's not covered. and i said, okay, i'm not being very clear here with my questioning. what about my son? she said, yeah, your son's covered. i said, you don't understand. what if he needs another surgery on his eye? are you going to pay for it? they said, yes, he's covered. and i was shocked. and she said, we can no longer exclude pre-existing conditions for children. and it didn't hit me until later that night when i was talking with my husband as to why she said that. and we started talking about it. and i said, wow, something affected me personally from, you know, the government. it was really shocking. not only did we have a more affordable plan, but my son is now covered. no matter what happens. it is routine for children to need multiple surgeries. and i know now that's not going to have to come out of our pocket, which was a big fear. so i'm very thankful and grateful. thank you so much for everything you've done, president obama, and everything everyone has done to push this through.
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because it's made our life a lot less stressful as an average american family. >> thank you, dawn. next up, i want to talk to gayle. >> the president, listening to health care stories then he'll take questions. more on the health care changes that are taking effect tomorrow. insurers will have to start following a bunch of new rules that will certainly impact you. and josh has that for us. josh? >> yeah, you know, tony, a lot of what we're hearing about there and what i'm about to talk to you here is there was a lot of debate. there are some basics. there was some common ground, though we didn't hear probably enough about through the debate. but some of these things about taking care of kids with pre-existing conditions. a lot of people wanted to see. and tomorrow, it marked six months since the president signed that legislation. that's the date that some of these big changes will come into effect. i'm going to tell you, though,
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it might not come into effect through you. most people who get it through work won't see the changes until january 1st. but plans sold to new individuals or groups starting tomorrow, there could be some changes right away. i want to show you some changes, and then i want to show you why they might not apply to your plan. here's the deal. one of them to know about is free preventive care. it gets rid of co-payments and co-insurance for a lot of basic charges. level charges for emergency services. this new law is requiring that insurers take away anything you needing to get prior authorization before you go to an e.r. that has to be gone. also, they can't charge you more if the e.r. you go to is out of network. because clearly you had an emergency, had a reason to go there. another one here. a dependent coverage through age 26. if you have a dependent who is 26 or younger and cannot get another kind of employer-base health care plan, yours will have to cover that dependent.
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and finally, patient-friendly appeals process. this law actually says that while a claim is under review, there has to be a new internal and external appeals process. the insurance company has to pay everything and subsequent care as long as that appeals process is going on. so these are the kinds of things that a lot of people said, hey, i really want -- i think it's really important. now, here's the trick. all of these things i just showed you do not apply to your plan if your plan is what's called grandfathered. and so one thing you need to do is find out wherever you get your health insurance from. if it's through your job, you want to find out if your plan is grandfathered or not. it's going to be tougher each year to grandfather a plan. but if yours is, the things i showed you will not apply to yours even on january 1st. the employer doesn't have to follow those. but there are a few things that will apply to everybody. like no lifetime limits and children being covered for pre-existing conditions. and finally, insurers cannot rescind your coverage. if you get sick, they can't take it away. stuff like that is supposed to a
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apply to absolutely everybody. checking on what's going to happen to your specific plan. >> very good, josh. thank you, sir. >> you got it. still to come. a prominent preacher accused of pressuring young men into gay sex. we will update the story for you in just a moment. in 2008 i quit venture capital to follow my passion for food. i saw a gap in the market for a fresh culinary brand and launched behindtheburner.com. we create and broadcast content and then distribute it across tv, the web, and via mobile. i even use the web to get paid. with acceptpay from american express open,
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we now invoice advertisers and receive payments digitally. and i get paid on average three weeks faster. booming is never looking for a check in the mail. because it's already in my email.
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okay. we've got breaking news on the future plans for a white house chief of staff. rahm emanuel, let's go to our senior white house correspondent ed henry for that. ed, what do you have? >> reporter: tony, now hearing from two people close to rahm emanuel that there's a good chance that he will be stepping down as soon as october. just next month as chief of
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staff in order to focus full-time running for mayor. now, to be clear, these people close to emanuel are saying that he has not firmly made up his mind yet to run for mayor, but it's all but a certainty he will run. he's right now tied up in making sure some of the president's initiatives get through the senate in the final days of the senate wrapping up before it goes home to campaign. a key date to watch is when the senate leaves. originally they said they were going to adjourn on october 8th. dana bash now hearing democrats may leave as soon as the end of next week, around october 1st. once that happens, i'm told by these people close to emanuel it's going to happen very rapidly. he's going to make a decision one way or the other. likely he's going to run for mayor. and then he's going to be gone. he realized he needs to focus full-time on that. he has until late november to get the signatures he needs to get on the ballot. he's got a primary in february of next year. and another new piece of information we're picking up is that it's likely that pete rouse
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would at least take over on an interim basis. it's not suspected he would be the long-term chief of staff, but to bridge this. there's a lot going on here, larry summers saying he's leaving by the end of the year. they want to have somebody firm, have a transition in place. but it's not likely by early october the president would have a full-time chief of staff ready to go. so you may see someone like pete rouse step in the short-term. the bottom line is it's looking more and more possible that rahm emanuel will be leaving in october. >> thank you. mega church pastor eddie long accused in a gay sex lawsuit. two young men who were members of long's new birth missionary baptist church have filed suits. they claim he used his position as their spiritual counselor to coerce them into sexual relationships when they were teenagers. long's congregation just outside of atlanta is 25,000 members strong. he has publicly condemned
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homosexuals and has built a reputation for ministering to young men. one of the young men accusing long was recently charged with burglarizing the pastor's office. a spokesman for long points to that as being a motive for the lawsuit. we heard from both sides in the case. >> it's a case of retaliation and a shakedown for money by men with some serious credibility issues who are trying to mount their own defense. this is something that went from 48 hours from contact with the attorney flinging outrageous demands to this dog and pony show that began yesterday. >> we're not hiding this. it's in the lawsuit. he broke into the church. because if you ask any expert who deals with especially young people who have been exploited and sexually abused, there is incredible anger. and it says in the lawsuit in may of this year his best friend died, he had gone to the bishop for counseling and solace because, again, he'd known him since he was 14 years old.
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and the bishop then made a move on him. and that created a frenzy inside of him. it awoken him to how far this man didn't care about him and just was using him. >> all right. let's talk more about who bishop eddie long is and why he has had such a huge impact. and for that, we're bringing in josh levs. josh? >> and a lot of us reporters in this region who have covered this before have followed the story. and for some of you not familiar, i'll talk to you about the basics of him. there are repercussions here. i know we have a little bit of video of the church. the first thing to understand here is that new missionary baptist church isn't just a huge mega church. it's a leader in a religious movement in america. the mega church phenomenon particularly in the african-american community and particularly with prosperity gospel. that has groan exponentially over the last couple of decades. and new missionary baptist church is sprawling. this church has a $50 million
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complex, it's got a football field, basketball courts, tons of things there. 10,000 seats and multiple services because more than enough people to fill more than once. long himself is credited with making the church the empire that it is. he's 57 years old, he was raised in the south. son of a reverend, one of four boys. he actually started his career in business and then became ordained as a pastor. and along with the rise of the church, he became very, very wealthy. raking in million of dollars. tv viewers watch him from around the world, as well. he's written books, produced hip hop cds, christian cds. he has a lot of fans and he's a household name. here's what a couple of people in atlanta said when they heard this news. >> i just don't believe that's true. >> this man love his wife with a passion. everybody know he love his wife. >> i'll tell you, he has faced controversies before, but nothing like this. nothing remotely like this. back in 2005, the atlanta
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journal constitution reported on the question of his handling the money, money that was funneled through his charity. and in 2006, the senate looked into several televangelists whether they were using money to fund lavish lifestyles. he's maintained he did nothing wrong. and he has a bunch of awards. he was named the honorary sheriff in dekalb county. he got big brothers and big sisters gave him a legacy award. the cdc honored him for bringing attention to aids and talking about it. we're talking about someone who is very liked, very respected, and a huge figure in prosperity gospel in america. that's how big this is. >> yeah. it is a -- that's a huge story here, josh. all right. got to tell you homosexuality really has caused a lot of soul searching in churches across america. j.l. king is the author of "on the down low," a journey into the lives of straight black men who sleep with men. and he joins us now.
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j.l., good to talk to you. >> thank you. >> i had to have a conversation before this just to sort of better understand how we could approach this conversation. because these are accusations, allegations at this point. nothing's been proven against the bishop eddie long. but were you shocked to hear, to read about these accusations from these two young men against the bishop? >> no, i was not. >> you weren't? >> no, i was not shocked. when i was doing research for my first book, i talked with thousands of men around the world who shared with me about the struggles of being in the church and hear pastors talking about homosexuality as the biggest sin. and it's the biggest taboo. i talked to pastors and bishops and lay leaders and people who go to church every sunday, who hear the pastor talking about gay members. members in the choir, members who pay heavy ties every sunday.
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and i'm not surprised. and i think we're going to hear more of this type of behavior coming out of the church. >> well, two things here. it's one thing to not be surprised that there could be clergy involved in this kind of activity. i guess i'm asking more specifically if you were surprised to hear of these allegations, accusations against the bishop eddie long. >> no, because i really don't know bishop long personally. so i can't really say -- >> good. okay. >> i don't know him personally and i can't say that. but i'm not surprised to hear about -- >> good, i wanted that as a point of clarification. but there is -- is clearly this tension over gay life, homosexuality in the black church and how it is dealt with in the black church. can you explain that to everyone watching us right now? >> i grew up in the church. you know, from the time i came out of my mother's womb, i grew up in the church. the church i grew up in.
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again, hearing the pastor almost every third sunday talking about homosexuality an abomination. and as i grew up that god made hiv to destroy people. and even in 2010, more people more accepting to homosexuality. in the black community, you hear the same hatred messages. the church has really the power to start changing attitudes. to bring healing to our community. and all the young people are struggling with their sexuality. they go to the church looking for that understanding, that love. but instead, they keep hearing you're going to hell, you're an abomination, you're less than, god hates you. and that causes young men to look at hiding on the down low, to marry women when they know that's not who they are. >> you know what? you've written a best-selling book on the subject. >> yes. >> there are a lot of people i would imagine are listening to us now -- and there's the title
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of the book "on the down low." will you explain what that means to be -- >> on the down low. >> will you explain what that means? >> the down low means many things to many people, but for my own interpretation is when you're living a double life. >> from your own life experience. >> i used to be a down low guy, but you're on the down low, you're living two lives, you're having sex with men on the side and not sharing that with your wife or your girlfriend. you keep that on the hush hush. you're living two lives. making sure people don't look at you as being anything but a straight, heterosexual man. and it's a hard life, man. that's why i decided to move away from it. life is too short. life is way too short to try to cover up something and not be who you are. >> whether the allegations against bishop long are true or not, how will the news of the
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lawsuits be received in the gay community, you think? >> i think they'll constantly go after him because of him being so outspoken against gay rights, gay marriage, gay everything. hopefully i'm hoping it will open up conversations in the church. so leaders will sit down and really have dialogue with their members and allow those men to come out and say this is who i am. i think it starts from the top. >> the clergy you spoke into who are living this double life. what's the reason they give for not living a more open life? >> the bottom line? fear. fear of rejection. fear of loss. fear of acceptance. and that's the bottom line. fear. and when you're under fear, it'll make you do things that you know that's not right. >> j.l., appreciate it. thank you for spending the time with us. still to come, an apology for salmonella-tainted eggs, a hearing underway right now. [ rattling ]
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[ gasps ] [ rattling ] [ laughing ] [ announcer ] close enough just isn't good enough. - if your car is in an accident, - [ laughing continues ] make sure it's repaired with the right replacement parts. take the scary out of life with travelers. call or click now for an agent or quote. words alone aren't enough. my job is to listen to the needs and frustrations of the shrimpers and fishermen, hotel or restaurant workers who lost their jobs to the spill. i'm iris cross. bp has taken full responsibility for the clean up in the gulf and that includes keeping you informed. our job is to listen and find ways to help. that means working with communities. restoring the jobs, tourist beaches, and businesses impacted by the spill. we've paid over $400 million in claims and set up a $20 billion
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independently-run claims fund to cover lost income until people impacted can get back to work. and our efforts aren't coming at tax-payer expense. i know people are wondering-- now that the well is capped, is bp gonna meet its commitments? i was born in new orleans. my family still lives here. i'm gonna be here until we make this right.
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pictures, information, insight you won't find anywhere else. "cnn newsroom" with tony harris. anything can happen. 550 million eggs were recalled.
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hundreds of people became sick, now the main egg producers responsible for the largest u.s. egg salmonella outbreak are apologizing. congressional correspondent brianna keilar on capitol hill. is the testimony underway? and what are we expecting to hear in addition to this apology? >> reporter: right now, we're hearing from the committee members, tony. and we'll start hearing testimony from some of the victims of this salmonella outbreak that happened last month. then we'll be hearing from the big egg producers. and the bottom line is we'll expecting to say i'm sorry. the biggest player in this were expected to tell the committee they believe the source of this outbreak was an ingredient in the feed that was given to their chickens. this was an ingredient that came from a third party supplier, they say. and we're also expecting these two egg producers -- and these are huge egg producers, tony. wright county egg, 1.4 billion
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eggs per year. they're going to try to assure this committee they're doing everything they can to make sure this doesn't happen again, that they're vaccinating chickens against salmonella, they're cleaning up barns that fda inspection officials found to be in deplorable conditions. but we know at this point that the fda and it appears that the department of justice is involved in investigating this whole thing. there were a couple of federal agents who at the end of last month went to check out both of these farms. this is pretty serious. a potentially criminal matter at this point. >> yeah. are these witnesses potentially facing any penalties overall with this? >> reporter: you know, it's hard to tell. we're going to be hearing from a representative of the fda. and obviously when you're talking about the fda, maybe you're looking at fines. but when you're talking about the department of justice being involved. and i should say they're not putting out a whole lot of information about what really the status of this criminal investigation is, although we do know that federal agents went to
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these farms. that would obviously be a more serious matter. so we're still waiting to find out some of those answers. >> okay. brianna keilar on capitol hill for us. thank you. let's take a break. you're in the "cnn newsroom." o. sure, i can download directions for you now. we got it. thank you very much! check it out. i can like, see everything that's going on with the car. here's the gas level. i can check on the oil. i can unlock it from anywhere. i've received a signal there was a crash. some guy just cut me off. i'll get an ambulance to you right away. safely connecting you in ways you never thought possible. onstar. live on. hii was tired of livings. in my apartment. decided hey, let's go buy a house! i could go to quickenloans.com and sign all of the paper work i needed to take care of. and it didn't have to be between 9 and 5 -- which doesn't always work for me. the people at quicken loans really care. it was nice to being able to call them whenever i needed to answer questions. they were on it. they were on top of everything. quicken loans made everything super convenient and easy. so the fact that they could work with my schedule
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personal pricing now on brakes. tell us what you want to pay. we do our best to make that work. deal! my money. my choice. my meineke. let's get everyone to cnnmoney.com here. and we can take a look at the lead story. the fda -- that's a good story. it's a lead story. there's important news there. i'm looking for something that
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really -- okay. obviously stocks are under pressure as gold surges. everyone buys gold as a hedge against the economy. and maybe a further downturn. okay. so that's cnnmoney.com. we are three hours into the trading day now. let's take a look at stocks. we're in negative territory. we've been in negative territory for most of the day. we are down 29 points and we'll follow these numbers for you throughout the day right here in the "cnn newsroom." dr. sanjay gupta uncovers a really heart wrenching medical mystery. a little girl battling an unknown killer. he will introduce us into some incredible doctor detectives when we come back. ♪ [ male announcer ] every business day, bank of america lends billions of dollars, to individuals, institutions, schools, organizations and businesses. ♪ working to set opportunity in motion.
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for the last year, chief medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta has been following patients with diseases that are true medical mysteries. one's a little girl, the other, a mother of five. the undiagnosed diseases program is their last hope. dr. gupta introduces us to them and their doctor detectives. >> reporter: kylie was sick and getting sicker. her parents had spent nearly two years with specialists. >> perfect. >> reporter: no one could diagnose what was happening to kylie. her voice tremor.
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the twitches that were convulsing the entire right side of her body. >> i feel like a bad parent. i feel like, why can't i help my kid? so -- >> just can't really put it into words. just -- helpless. >> reporter: kylie had once been a perfectly healthy toddler until -- it was as if an invisible force was at war with her body. her parents videotaped their little girl's descent. >> turn your head towards us. >> reporter: but not a single doctor knew what was happening to kylie. dr. william gall is the doctor at the national institutes of health. >> i remember vividly the first time that i met her by video. it was at one of our udp board meetings. >> can you smile for me? >> you could have heard a pin drop in that room.
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there were 65 people in it. and they're all essentially emoting over this, you know, terrible occurrence. >> reporter: last year, kylie was accepted into the program. >> this was our last hope, but at the same time, it's -- we finally made it to the people that are going to find out what's wrong. >> reporter: a mysterious force was also assaulting sally's body. at 53, a wife and mother of five, her muscles were growing out of control. she was in excruciating pain. she too was accepted into the undiagnosed diseases program. >> i felt certain that if there wasn't a diagnosis, i felt like it was pretty certain it would kill me. >> this is super impressive. >> look at these things. >> you literally see a cleavage right in the middle of her back because those muscles are so big. >> reporter: first suspicion, sally looked like a steroid
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junky. but she wasn't. absolutely no evidence of that. >> i turned off the feelings, and i just couldn't -- it was really painful. -- to look in the mirror. >> reporter: sally's husband, buddy. >> it was scary. waiting to find out what's next. what normal functional thing people have to do to get through the day was she not going to be able to do the next? >> reporter: no one could offer an explanation. the medical s.w.a.t. team of doctors and specialists at the disease program quickly ruled out one possibility. >> bottom line, just confined to the muscle. what in the world could this be? >> reporter: that's always the question. ky kylie made their way to bethesda, maryland, in hopes of finding out what in the world could be wrong with kylie. >> do you want to know what's going on with kylie if the next sentence was, but there's nothing we can do about it? >> yeah.
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>> reporter: why? >> just -- i think it would be nice to have a prognosis. to know -- i mean, even if it's not treatable, if it is terminal, then how much time we have left. as opposed to not knowing, you know, it could all end tomorrow. >> reporter: kylie will undergo a week long series of complex tests and evaluations by top medical specialists at nih. it's physically draining for everyone. and for kylie's mom and dad, emotionally wrenching. the week is intense. >> i don't think anybody's seen anything quite like kylie. this is a very complex case. and could be difficult to solve. >> clearly on the right leg, you see a lot of movement here. the right foot sort of the foot is turned inward.
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they call that abonormal tone. left side has it a little bit, as well, but not quite as bad, other than that's constant movement going on. you can see it in the feet, you can see it in the hands, you can see it in her eyelids and clearly in her voice. >> can you pinch the wings of the fly for me? >> reporter: they look at everything for clues. >> something curious about what happens with sleep. >> oh, it stops when she sleeps. >> it stops when she sleeps? >> that's a really important clue. >> very important. yes. >> reporter: kylie's tests begin in early morning. >> beautiful. >> can i tell you something? you are all done. >> good job. >> reporter: and go late into the night. >> say baby boy. >> baby boy. >> say kitty cat. >> it's hard. >> silly sue. >> it's really hard. hopefully it's for a good cause. >> reporter: in the hall ways, specialists hold meetings on the
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fly, throwing out new theorys, hoping something they've learned fits into the bigger puzzle in the single diagnosis. >> a lot of unanswered questions, absolutely. >> for a lot of patients, and as we were investigating this, really got the sense that this ends up being a place of last hope or last resort for them. that's a lot of pressure. >> well, it is. we try to be realistic about it and get our patients to be realistic about the issues too. we've been to the best places in the country, now you're coming here. we only have 10% to 15% success rate. so i don't want you to get your hopes up really too, too high. but on the other hand, we don't want to take all hope away. >> reporter: sally massagee knew what she was doing there. >> i took that disclaimer and i heard it. and i still had a strong dose of hope. >> you can see more on the doctor detectives tonight on anderson cooper 360 at 10:00
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p.m. eastern. ♪ we could've gone a more traditional route... ... but it wouldn't have been nearly as memorable. ♪
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endorsement. he officially supported andrew cuomo, new york state's attorney general. that happened less than two hours ago, tony. and this is interesting to see how this will play out in this election. a brand new poll came out hours earlier, and it indicated that cuomo is only a few points ahead of carl paladino. he won the primary last week, and he's closing in as the polls suggest up there in new york. we're going to keep a close eye on this race. david jenkins if you could come in here to the cnn political ticker. brand new today, i learned about this earlier, today, tony. the tea party express announcing new details about their new bus tour. their press release says that the tour is going to be called "liberty at the ballot box." and you know what? i learned from a source that the tour is going to be two weeks long and it's going to end on november 2nd, election day, and it's going to end in the home state of nevada, harry reid, tea party express, really been going
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after him, tony. we're going to have a lot of coverage of that, i'm sure. and finally, let's talk about the president himself. i guess he's been playing the role of fundraiser in chief tonight. because he's going to be in new york city as we know for the united nations assembly. but today he teams up with nancy pelosi, harry reid. they're going to have a fundrais fundraiser. the president will be the keynote -- the main attraction there. they expect to raise big bucks. remember, democrats think -- it may soften the blows come november. tony, a lot of stuff on the cnn political ticker. >> sounds like it. paul, appreciate it. thank you, sir. your next political update coming in one hour. and for the latest political news, just go to cnnpolitics.com. what's this option? that's new.
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personal pricing now on brakes. tell us what you want to pay. we do our best to make that work. deal! my money. my choice. my meineke. all right. let's get you caught up on top stories now. some big changes in health care coverage take place tomorrow, six months after president obama signed the landmark reform bill.
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the president is marking the occasion at an event in virginia. among the measure is key changes if you have a child under age 19 with a pre-existing condition, insurance plans can no longer deny coverage. and insurance companies can no longer drop you if you fall ill. two young men are suing prominent atlanta minister bishop eddie long, accusing him of coercing them into sex. long often speaks out against homosexuality. he's denying the allegations calling them a shakedown. we need directions to go to... pearblossom highway? it's just outside of lancaster.
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hi, ellen! hi, ellen! hi, ellen! hi, ellen! we're going on a field trip to china! wow. [ chuckles ] when i was a kid, we -- we would just go to the -- the farm. [ cow moos ] [ laughter ] no, seriously, where are you guys going? ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! ni hao! [ female announcer ] the new classroom. see it. live it. share it. on the human network. cisco.

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